


Pink Water

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin Skywalker is So Done, Bathing/Washing, Bathtubs, Blood, Cutting, Death, Depression?, Drowning, Drunk Writing, F/M, Gen, Grief, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Loss, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Suicide, Unintentional Suicide, wrist cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29603841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Anakin cuts himself because he hates who he is.Maybe he shouldn't do it while he's soaking in a tub full of hot water, though.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8
Collections: Anonymous





	Pink Water

Anakin likes to watch the blood.

He likes to watch it as it drips down what's left of his arm and into the bath. He likes the way it looks as it swirls around in the water, and the way the foam from the soap he uses to wash his hair makes it seem more pink than red. He appreciates how it contrasts with the stark-white tile of the bathroom he shares with his wife, and how when he's lost _just_ enough of it to put an irrepressible smile on his face, it feels like everything is going to be okay.

 _It doesn't matter what you do to your stump anyway,_ his brain tells him as he gazes longingly at what remains of his right arm. _It's completely useless; it only makes sense to slice it up._

And slice it up he does. 

Anakin has been injuring himself for years; in one way or another, he's always made sure to punish himself for being abnormal. He's never been able to live up to the expectations of the people around him; he's good at things, yes, but he's good at them in the wrong way. Anakin always feels as if he's five minutes late for everything, that he always comes up short. If he were a better person, he reasons, his mother wouldn't be dead. He wouldn't be so scared of losing his wife; wouldn't be so scared of being a dad.

He is quite sure he's going to be a terrible dad.

"I can't give you what you need," he murmurs to his babies, even though they haven't been born yet. Even though their mother, who is carrying them, isn't even in the room. 

Thank god she isn't, because if she were, she'd be furious.

 _Dreams aren't real, Anakin!_ she'd scold him, and she would try to take the razor away. She _always_ tries to take the razor away.

"I need it," he says next, watching with fascination as his left hand grips the tiny sliver of sharpened metal between his thumb and forefinger, and uses it to carve a long, deep line right down the length of his wrist. He misses the hand that used to be attached to it, he thinks as the fresh wound begins to seep bright scarlet.

It looks like the colour of the cardinal that used to land outside his window when he was a little boy, he thinks. It would sing and sing; when he'd complain about it waking him up too early, his mother would tell him to appreciate it, because it might not always be there.

Anakin wishes he would have listened to his mother.

Heartened by the sight of himself continuing to bleed into the tub, he makes another cut. It runs parallel to the one he's already made; it, too, takes a moment to start to seep, but once it does, the stream is relentless. It oozes and trickles; more than that, it _flows._ It colours the water and the foam, and the skin all around its source. 

It's delightful, really, or at least Anakin thinks it is. 

He feels dizzy by now; dizzy, and cold. This is in spite of the heat of the bath water in which he has submerged himself; he's covered, now, right up to the middle of his chest. One of the reasons his wife insisted upon purchasing this particular home was the presence of its large, jacuzzi-style bathtub. Anakin was skeptical of it at first; he thought it unnecessary, but these days he likes it just as much as she does. He likes to sit in it and cut himself, because the sheer volume of the water amplifies the 'floaty' feeling he gets from losing so much blood. 

Anakin doesn't dream when he feels 'floaty'.

He tries to stand up next, but he can't. "Shit," he says to himself, as his legs refuse to support his weight and he finds himself relegated to his steaming tub of hot water and self-abuse. 

He tries again, this time using his only hand to push against the side of the bath— perhaps if he can get himself some leverage...

_"Fuck!"_

He looks down, only to realize that he's forgotten to let go of his razor blade. His hand is bleeding now, too; to make matters worse, he's lost his razor in the tub. He dips his hand below the surface in an attempt to find it, but he can't feel a thing. All he can see is blood; its emerging from his palm and being diluted by the water faster than he can even begin to calculate its total volume.

Anakin has always had a head for numbers.

His opposite wrist is still bleeding, too, perhaps more than he's planned, but he is preoccupied with finding his blade. He's friends with his blade; it's always there for him— when it hasn't been confiscated, that is.

"Goddamnit, Padmé," he says next, still to himself, because he's still alone. She doesn't understand— all he's trying to do is keep her safe. It's all he's ever tried to do! She isn't safe if he can't cope, and without his razor blade, he _can't fucking cope._

Anakin has put his head beneath the water by now. Both his bleeding stump and his bleeding hand are rooting around under there, too. He's forgotten all about getting up; his focus has come to rest solely upon locating his little stainless steel friend. He wrenched it out of one of the blades he uses to shave his face; he had to use scissors to get it out, and he sliced his own fingers up in the process. Nothing is as easy with one hand as it was with two.

When the air in Anakin's lungs begins to be displaced by his bath water, he hardly notices. He's too busy searching; too busy feeling frustrated.

Too busy to discern why he feels cold in a tub full of the hottest water the faucet could generate.

When his wife finds him the next morning, she wants to believe he's playing a trick. Anakin has always liked to pull jokes on her, hasn't he?

"Anakin," she says scoldingly as she approaches the now-icy bath. _"Anakin!"_

She doesn't have to touch him to realize he's not joking, but she touches him anyway. He's cold, cold and pale. Anakin's skin is a haunting shade of alabaster, and the water surrounding him is a sickly pink. The wounds on his arm and hand stand out against his pallor, and the foam from his soap has all but dissolved.

She ignores the frantic kicking of her twin babies as she maneuvers around hard porcelain and her own body to drag her husband out of the bath. He flops down on the floor next to the tub, no longer bleeding, but dead nonetheless. 

Anakin hadn't meant to die.

Padmé wails for a time; cries and holds him, because what else is she supposed to do? "What have you done?" she asks his corpse, as water pours out the side of his mouth. His lips are blue, she notices— has he drowned, or has he he bled to death? 

She has no way of knowing he hasn't done this on purpose.

Paramedics rush to the house, only to confirm what Anakin Skywalker's wife already knew: That he's gone now, and that he isn't coming back.

The coming days will be a flurry of activity. Dispersed amongst paperwork and funeral plans and outpourings of support from those who didn't realize the searing pain of her husband's existence, there will be moments of deafening silence for Padmé. Moments in which she feels lost; in which she wonders what she could have done for the person she loved most, even though nothing likely could have helped.

Those moments will become longer and more pronounced, as the grief of people who didn't know him as well as she did fades, and the novelty of his death begins to wear off. 

Anakin wasn't okay when he met his wife, and he wasn't okay when he married her, either. There had always been a part of his brain which told him he didn't belong; that he wasn't good enough, and that his existence was a detriment to those he loved. He'd tried various methods over the years to quiet that voice, but it only ever seemed to grow louder— with each passing trauma; with every additional emotional slight.

Now, at least, that voice has been silenced. He felt it fade himself as he'd floated near the surface of the bath, eyes wide and lungs inflated with pink water.

He might not have meant to die, but now maybe his wife can live in peace.

Maybe she can raise their babies without the disrupting influence of an inadequate father.

Anakin would have been happy about that.


End file.
